How much longer will Seoul’s spy agency repeat its humiliations?

Won Se-hoon, former director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), South Korea’s spy agency, was summoned by the prosecution Monday, just 39 days after his retirement. He was interrogated for 14 hours for the spy agency’s alleged operations to influence public opinion ahead of last year’s presidential election. On Tuesday, a special investigative team of the Seoul District Prosecutors’ Office raided the NIS headquarters in southern Seoul to search and obtain the relevant documents. While it remains to be seen how the investigation will be concluded, the raid per se was a huge humiliation for the spy agency.

The special investigative team is looking into the suspicion that a female agent intervened in last year’s presidential election. The former director was been sued by civic groups for having allegedly violated the law regulating the National Security Law and the election law. Investigators are digging into whether the agent’s activities of leaving political comments on popular Internet bulletin boards were conducted under orders from the NIS leadership. Former senior officials, including a deputy director, have also been interrogated by prosecutors. The prosecution is also investigating whether Won had political intentions between May 2009 and January this year when he ordered his agents to do the online activities, as a leaked internal NIS document suggested.

Won has become the sixth former NIS chief to be investigated by the prosecution since 1999. The latest raid on the national spy agency was the second one. The first one was conducted in August 2005 when the agency was under investigation for illegal wiretapping. The agency is repeating its humiliation because of its failure to break the old practices of political operations by its predecessors, the Korea Central Intelligence Agency and the Agency for National Security Planning. The National Security Law prohibits its agents from getting involved in political activities. The agency should fully cooperate with the ongoing probe, rather than reiterating its claim that it carried out the online activities as part of its psychological operations against North Korea.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush let former CIA Director George Tenet appointed by his immediate predecessor Bill Clinton, carry on his job. In the U.S., there are not a few cases in which a spy chief serves two or more administrations because the intelligence agency strictly maintains political neutrality. Had Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, intervened in politics, it would not have been able to win the reputation as one of the world’s most efficient intelligence agency.

North Korea has pushed the Kaesong Industrial Complex into a near-closure situation, following its long-range rocket launch and a nuclear test. South Korea has issues with neighboring countries, including Japan, whose government is taking a turn to the right. At a time when a number of national security issues are posing challenges to Seoul, the NIS has been reduced to a criminal suspect. How much longer the NIS will repeat its humiliations every time a new administration comes into power? National Intelligence Service`s new Director Nam Jae-joon should learn from the lessons left by his predecessors and straighten up on how he will run the disgraced agency.